One of earliest childhood memories of travel is riding in the back of the car driving along a motorway in mountains in the north of Italy. To traverse a terrain of deep valleys and high ridges the engineers had taken a midline. The road leaps across the ravines on high viaducts, plunging straight into a tunnel only to fly out again across the next bridge. With the sea glistening deep below it was an exhilarating journey. (Did this sow the seed of going into civil engineering?)
Faced with a series of peaks and troughs the engineers flattened the journey. They saved journey time and energy on every single car journey on that route, every day for over half a century.
Smoothing things out is something that engineers seem to be generally good at. For example we’ve been straightening rivers to make them more navigable for centuries.
But building faster, straighter roads also increases traffic. Straightening rivers increases flood risk.
When we start to consider the unintended consequences smoothing things out we might find that working with the ups and downs and twists and turns is better. The friction slows down the flow. People or water, in these examples, spend longer in each place. There is greater interaction and opportunity exchange and creation of wealth in its many forms.
Next time I cross the Italian Alps hopefully I can do it on a bicycle, following the contours of the river valleys.
